The System
by amandajbruce
Summary: They have a system for eveything, even fighting.


A/N: I decided to go back through my fifteen minute challenges that I had done a while back, and I found a couple that I thought would go well together, so I combined them. The first part of this was for the word middle (in the cafeteria), the second for the word silence (at Oliver's house). I had to do a whole lot of experimenting to actually get them to fit together, like actually figuring out what they were fighting about, but it was kind of fun to go back through random writing. And, I guess I'd set this sometimein season two, if you're looking for a timeline. I don't think it matters though.

Miley hated this. It had to be one of the most annoying things she had ever experienced. She wondered if this was how her father felt every time she and her older brother argued. No wonder Doctor Philbilly came out so often. It was maddening.

She looked at her two best friends as they sat across from one another at the lunch table. They were staring daggers at one another, arms crossed, backs against their respective chairs. Neither of them would even tell her what it was they were arguing about. It was so frustrating. They were supposed to tell each other everything.

After ten minutes had gone by and neither of them made so much as a move to eat their lunch or even yell at one another, she was tempted to jokingly tell them to kiss and make up, but she did not know what kind of reaction that would get. Under normal circumstances, Lilly would roll her eyes and announce how dumb Oliver was, but this time? The reaction would probably be different. Probably not a good one.

This was the problem with having two best friends who were so much alike. They were so stubborn, neither of them ever wanting to give in when they got going. Usually when they fought, it was just normal bickering, stupid jokes, and they would move on, but this was somehow different.

She lifted her fork and picked at the salad on her tray. The leaves were wilted, brown, and there were carrots poking out from under the surface. She began to pick at it in earnest, depositing the carrots on one side of her plate, the brown lettuce on the other. When she had a decent salad left that did not look like it belonged in a toxic waste dump, she added her dressing, and then looked at her friends again.

Lilly was no longer glaring at Oliver, but she did not look happy either. She was now staring at her own plate, still not eating. Oliver had slumped further down in his seat, his eyes never leaving the blond girl's face. Miley had a feeling this meant Oliver was more angry than Lilly was. In fact, Lilly looked almost hurt.

What was going on?

"If ya'll don't want to talk to each other, or to me, why are ya even here? This is the quietist lunch I have ever sat through." Miley looked back and forth, but neither of them said a word.

Lilly sighed, and Oliver opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but then immediately shut it again. Ridiculous.

"Fine. Don't tell me. But, I am not taking sides. I don't care who started it, one of you better fix it. Soon. I'm sick of talkin' to myself." With that, Miley picked up her fork and began eating her make-shift salad.

"Miley…" Lilly and Oliver started at the same time, then froze, neither of them wanting to continue.

A smile curled in the corner of Miley's mouth, but she covered it with a cough before she took another bite.

"It's her fault," Oliver said, pointing at Lilly. "She's nuts."

"My fault? You are so… so…argh!" Lilly could not even finish her sentence.

Apparently, sometime in the course of the day, she had run out of synonyms for idiot. Every time she had come across him, which was often, since they had a lot of classes together, she had made a point of letting everyone within earshot know just how stupid she thought he was. Her insults had all dried up.

"Oh, sweet niblets," Miley muttered under her breath as they went back to glaring at one another.

What had actually happened a few class periods earlier was this: Oliver had made the mistake of picking a different partner in a class he and Lilly shared, without giving her any warning.

In classes that the two of them had without Miley, which was rare, the two of them always paired up. They had been doing it since kindergarten, so it was normal. They usually sat close to one another anyway, and they did it without even thinking about it. The two of them working together on a project was second nature. They even had a system.

If it was an in class assignment where they just had to answer a bunch of questions, Lilly took the even numbers and Oliver took the odds. The system had been in place since they were 12 when Lilly informed him that he had to take the odds because he was odd. There had been a brief argument, but Lilly won.

Lilly always won.

If it was some sort of oral presentation, Oliver got to pick the topic. Lilly always found this to be the best bet. If Oliver liked the topic, he would be able to talk about it much more easily. It helped cut down on his stage fright. It also meant that they did some really strange presentations, like discussing Angelina Jolie as a modern Robin Hood figure. Lilly still wasn't sure she agreed with that. And then there was the history of the coconut. For some reason, Oliver found coconuts fascinating.

If it was a Spanish dialogue, Lilly got to have all of the complicated phrases. She would make up funny things for Oliver to say so it was easier for him to remember. He seemed especially capable of discussing surfing monkeys, or cats wearing pants. Their dialogues were always a hit with their classmates, if not with the teacher.

But this was math class. Specifically, Algebra. Not really either of their strong suits. Oliver wasn't bad at math; he just found it boring. And Lilly, well, Lilly hated math. With a passion. It was not a class where they normally got to work with another student. Lilly just thought that since they sat next to each other, and since they partnered up in every other class, math would be no exception.

So when they were asked to pair up to create a study guide with examples of the rules from the chapter to help them prepare for the test at the end of the week, Lilly instinctively turned to Oliver, who was already facing the other direction and talking to another pretty blond girl, who he apparently decided to work with. A blond girl that Lilly knew had received a lower grade than she did on her last test. So really, it wasn't like Oliver was even trading up to improve his grade.

Lilly ended up with Nose Whistle Wally.

On the plus side, Wally was great at math, and they managed to quickly create a study guide and turn it in. The negative? This gave her more than ten extra minutes of class in which to seethe over the fact that Oliver had abandoned her and to attempt to fend off Wally's constant requests to hang out after school.

Cut to them going to meet up with Miley at her locker after class and the two best friends yelling at one another about things like loyalty and jealousy.

"What is wrong with you?" Oliver asked when Lilly got in his face for the third time in the less than three minutes it had taken them to walk there.

"Me?" Lilly asked hotly. "What about you? We have a system!"

"Oh, come on!" Oliver tried to smile at her when he said, "Variety's the spice of life Lils."

Her response was to glare at him and inform him, "if that's what you think, I'm never working with you again."

"Never?" Oliver looked surprised at first, but he recovered quickly. "Fine."

"I can't believe you would just throw our system out the window," Lilly muttered.

"I didn't know we had a contract," Oliver shot back.

This set them off, and they stood practically nose to nose in front of Miley's locker, gathering a small crowd. There were more remarks that consisted of Lilly being crazy and Oliver needing to think with something other than his boy brain. (The first by Oliver and the second by Lilly.)

"God, Lilly, you are so dramatic! Don't you think you're overreacting?" Oliver asked as Miley walked up to them.

"Overreacting? I had to spend the last hour with Wally!" Lilly's eyes flashed at him.

"So what? He's good at math!"

"Is Katie? Cause I never knew she could even count above ten!" she snapped.

Miley watched them for about ten more seconds, before she squeezed between the two of them to get to her locker. They just kept yelling on either side of her, and when she asked what they were fighting about, they ignored her. So she tried another tactic.

"How come you had to spend an hour with Wally?" she asked Lilly.

"Because he," Lilly said loudly, pointing to Oliver, "is an idiot."

When Oliver tried to protest that he was not an idiot and Lilly just wanted attention, she decided to list every idiotic thing he had done since they were four. It was a really long list, and she was only able to make it to about age six before Mr. Correlli interrupted her to teach class.

As class ended, Oliver proceeded to inform Lilly that she was just jealous.

They then decided to ignore one another for the next couple of hours.

Which beings us back to the lunchroom with Miley confused and frustrated.

***

Of course, it only took about another hour or so for Lilly to decide that fighting with Oliver, while she did it on a regular basis, was kind of exhausting when it was at this level. So, she decided to bite the bullet, and just ignore the fight instead of him, go back to normal. They were always able to shift back to regularly scheduled programming after fighting, no matter what they fought about.

It was another system they had, the forgive and forget kind.

They already knew everything about one another, and could probably make each other's lives a living hell if they were really angry and wanted revenge, but they both just set the fights aside and went right back to being the best of friends… until the next time they fought. So really, it was a regular thing for them. It helped them blow off steam, and since they frequently took their frustration out on one another, it eliminated them from getting into serious fights with other people who would not be quite as forgiving.

This time though, apparently Lilly had really been able to get under Oliver's skin because he was not having it.

Lilly couldn't believe it. Yelling would be better. Whispered arguments like they usually had in the middle of class would be preferable. She would even be okay with him blurting out an embarrassing story about her in front of everyone. This not talking though, nothing at all, not even to tell her how mad he was, it was driving her crazy.

"Hey, Oliver. Your presentation was really good. You didn't make the fruit fly joke once!" Nothing. He just calmly walked away, not even glancing in her direction. He wasn't even glaring at her anymore.

At the end of the day, she tried again.

"I was thinking about going to that new skate park that opened this week. You in?" He just walked over to some guy she did not know, and started talking to him instead. Well, if that was how he wanted it, two could play at that game.

When she ran into him at the beach, she said nothing, finishing her hotdog in silence before going the other direction. She ignored him when she saw him floundering with yet another girl who did not understand his jokes, and she forced herself to look away when one actually did.

She hung out with Miley instead, abandoning her skateboard for nail polish and lipstick. It was not that she hated nail polish or lipstick, she was just getting tired of analyzing every shade Miley owned. She loved Miley like a sister, but sometimes she really needed a break from the squealing over boys and the need to create the perfect outfit. She missed riding around in her neighborhood with the doughnut next door.

Two days and she felt like she was suffocating.

On the second night, just after the sun went down, Lilly walked over to the house next door, retrieved the basketball sitting by the front door, and began to repeatedly throw said basketball into the hoop hanging above the garage. The air was still, not a cloud in the sky, and she could actually see a few stars. She ignored the pin pricks of light in the sky though and focused on the hoop above her head, throwing the ball as hard as she could to interrupt the calm around her. She didn't care if the sound of the ball hitting the hoop was annoying his entire family, or the entire neighborhood for that matter. Oliver was just going to have to talk to her.

They didn't just have a system when it came to school work or forgetting an argument, they had one for the actual ending of the arguing too. Of course, this system was only resurrected when the fight had gone on for what one of them considered to be just way too long.

It never really mattered whose fault it was. Eventually, one of them got sick of the arguing and gave in. They may have both been stubborn, but they were also best friends. Ending a fight usually consisted of one of them annoying the other one until they admitted defeat, even after a serious argument. One summer, Oliver had spent an hour throwing grapes at Lilly's window, knowing she was in their, until she would talk to him again. And even though the sound of the fruit hitting her window annoyed her so much that she wanted to scream, she did not open her window to talk to him until he yelled that he was out of grapes and was going to have to go find something else to throw.

When the front door finally opened, she smiled to herself, knowing exactly who it was. He came up behind her and tried to get the ball back, but she dribbled away quickly, tossing it up and watching as it bounced off the rim. She frowned. She had made every basket until he came outside, but she decided to ignore that. It wasn't like he was making her nervous or anything.

"Lilly, give me the ball, and go home!" his voice was gruff, almost like it was not just her he had been ignoring the last two days. She realized that if she had been spending all of her time with Miley, that would have left him to spend time with Nick and Todd, but she hadn't really seen them hanging out much.

She calmly retrieved the ball, and again made a move for the basket. This time he blocked her, stealing the ball mid dribble, and she sighed.

"At least I got you to talk to me," Lilly mumbled, but she did not leave the driveway. Her blue eyes met his brown and he cracked a smile.

"Fine. Let's play. I win, you go home. You win, we talk," Oliver told her easily.

"We're talking now."

"Lilly!"

"Oliver!'

When they said each other's names it was exaggerated and sarcastic, like they were four years old again, and Lilly was pretty sure they would be able to go back to being normal.

The game began and ended with neither of them saying another word. And, of course, he let her win.

She always won. After all, they had a system.


End file.
